Yeah...and the trouble is, DHs wouldn't be getting Meta. Blizzard isn't going to design a class knowing it will take something from Warlocks. There is no gameplay reason to justify handing out that move and ability.

Who says that this spell is Metamorphosis? You even say there is possibility of working around this one ability. This is a clearly new spell I'm talking about that simply retains a 'look', but completely different mechanics and theme. Do you also believe that Demon Hunters would need to retain a Warcraft 3 spell with absolutely no change from the original source?

Originally Posted by Teriz

The overlap doesn't matter to you perhaps, but it definitely matters to Blizzard.

The denial of facts and evidence from your side of the debate astounds me.

Because Blizzard can change their priorities on a heartbeat for any given reason. They can set out to accomplish any set path of design, but it can also bend and break at will if faced with something as trivial as 'popularity'. Again, I bring the example of Blood Elves in the Horde. Although we saw the Blood Elves leaving the Alliance in TFT, there was no indication they had any more of a stronger bond with the Horde, or that they would join up with them. The same can be said of the Forsaken. The fact that Blood Elves joined the Horde was motivated by adding a 'pretty' race to balance out the high volume of players who want to play as a good looking female character.

Another big example is Paladins and Shamans opened up to Horde and Alliance. Do you think this was motivated by design? No, it was motivated by balance, since it was much too difficult to maintain the asymmetrical design.

So there is evidence of Blizzard breaking patterns that were formerly established. These are clear 'retcons' of established design. Why would you believe they would adhere to anything concrete when we have been shown throughout all of WoW's development that any design decision can be added, changed and taken back?

You are getting it; via the Warlock class and the glyph of Demon Hunting.

wrong and until you can understand how much work it would take to remake warlocks to be able to have a demon hunter tank spec dont talk to me. when you finally understand how much work it would take then you can talk to me again.

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Originally Posted by Thimagryn

Who says that this spell is Metamorphosis? You even say there is possibility of working around this one ability. This is a clearly new spell I'm talking about that simply retains a 'look', but completely different mechanics and theme. Do you also believe that Demon Hunters would need to retain a Warcraft 3 spell with absolutely no change from the original source?

Because Blizzard can change their priorities on a heartbeat for any given reason. They can set out to accomplish any set path of design, but it can also bend and break at will if faced with something as trivial as 'popularity'. Again, I bring the example of Blood Elves in the Horde. Although we saw the Blood Elves leaving the Alliance in TFT, there was no indication they had any more of a stronger bond with the Horde, or that they would join up with them. The same can be said of the Forsaken. The fact that Blood Elves joined the Horde was motivated by adding a 'pretty' race to balance out the high volume of players who want to play as a good looking female character.

Another big example is Paladins and Shamans opened up to Horde and Alliance. Do you think this was motivated by design? No, it was motivated by balance, since it was much too difficult to maintain the asymmetrical design.

So there is evidence of Blizzard breaking patterns that were formerly established. These are clear 'retcons' of established design. Why would you believe they would adhere to anything concrete when we have been shown throughout all of WoW's development that any design decision can be added, changed and taken back?

hell the could remake warlocks meta and rename it. it would be a simple fix. remove all melee abilities, augment their range spells better, change the look slightly, and call it something like demon state.

hell the could remake warlocks meta and rename it. it would be a simple fix. remove all melee abilities, augment their range spells better, change the look slightly, and call it something like demon state.

Hell, it wouldn't be the first time Demonology's gameplay was changed. TBH I'd prefer if they were a summon-heavy class rather than a carbon copy of Guild Wars 2 Necromancer gameplay.

wrong and until you can understand how much work it would take to remake warlocks to be able to have a demon hunter tank spec dont talk to me. when you finally understand how much work it would take then you can talk to me again.

Care to make a comparison?

The only thing that it would require for a spec is making The glyph a spec, warlocks being able to equip the Azzinoth blades, and allowing Night Elves to roll Locks. That's it.

Now, tell us how Blizz can make a DH class without overlapping significantly with other classes.

Well clearly the demand wasn't strong enough, since a DH class never made it into the game.

Demon hunters need a reason to show up in the game.

Blizzard devs have vocally lamented over the fact hero classes weren't ready to be approached as a mechanic in the game during their first expansion. Since then, demon hunters haven't had a clear niche in the theme of the future expansions, and Blizzard has been inspired by other ideas since WOTLK. Are you going to claim that DH wasn't a hero class in TBC because they are too much like rogues, while they had no overlap with warlocks at the time worth noting? Why no hero class at all in TBC?

The projecting of your own bias on those you disagree with is what is astounding here. Your obsession with spending so many seconds of your day telling people they cannot have something is equally so. Then there's your darling tinker you seem to almost at times appear to feel is in some way in peril from the existence of demon hunters with the way you compare the two.

J. Allen Brack said there were over 26 hero classes in rough conceptual stages in the WOTLK behind the scenes interview, with a complete deadpan face. If he was joking, it was out of nowhere and a little odd. Maybe he's a little odd. But your rigid and forced manipulations of context are toxic to the topic of this discussion and you keep it mired in circular stagnation, and it's bad enough with people with less then a passing familiarity of what a demon hunter even is or could be chiming in with hit and run posts.

Demon hunter lore and mechanics are tangled with contradictions that make no sense at the moment, and it needs to be ironed out. That isn't even acknowledged here. There is a direct contradiction between what demon hunters are and where they came from created by a direct conflict and contradiction of events based on Warcraft 3 being canon or Richard Knaak's book being canon. Blizzard has been content to somehow use both so far. It makes no sense. But it makes a great battle standard for people who openly display contempt for demon hunters based on Illidan, and who wish to actually claim some night elves somewhere in the last ten thousand years decided what Illidan did was so cool they would create a series of rituals based on warlock magic to imitate him to such a bizarre degree that they would take it upon themselves to cut out their own eyes and somehow replicating what Sargeras did to him by guesswork. To entertain that notion demonstrates a contempt for the idea and it's patronizing or it shows people aren't thinking about this very much at all.

Then you have people who somehow think Illidan trained some demon hunters in between his spiritual rape by Sargeras and his imprisonment for ten thousand years. Again, making no sense.

There is a vast gap here that needs to be explained and embellished and polished to reconcile with Knaak's complete dismissal of demon hunter's existence. Illidans idiosyncratic vestments and fighting style obviously were designed to suggest a traditional identity among the hero units who fought in the lore as specialists during the events of Warcraft 3 and the last ten thousand years while he was imprisoned. If Illidan just being a stylish trailblazer is seriously acceptable to you here it makes your "arguments" even more weak than they are historically known for being.

This subject is completely rife and contaminated with people playing games with context, but that seems to be an acceptable form of debate in our society today.

For now, demon hunter fans are left with either transmogging a rogue into half of a demon hunter or playing a warlock for a tenth of a demon hunter's identity and feeling, along with a fury warrior if you want to get pedantic or a death knight if you want to get really creative. And that's IF you are going to sit and actually watch what a demon hunter does in Warcraft 3 and take the time to legitimately note what they do and how often they do it without playing games over subjective tastes and warping context to fit whatever your argument requires.

In the end, they are all still left just being "wannabe" demon hunters and "wannabe" Illidans. Perfectly fine if you think that's what they are in the first place, and completely revealing if someone decides to make that their public stance on the issue.

There are good reasons a demon hunter will never happen beyond these wannabe examples, and good reasons to hope Blizzard might do more with the concept someday.

For now we can all sit and admire this demon hunter specialist fighting at the side of his kin at the battle of Mount Hyjal.

The only thing that it would require for a spec is making The glyph a spec, warlocks being able to equip the Azzinoth blades, and allowing Night Elves to roll Locks. That's it.

Now, tell us how Blizz can make a DH class without overlapping significantly with other classes.

demonology would have to be reworked again to not focus about meta. warlocks would have to under go another rework to completely re-balance everything. it would be much easier to make a class from the ground up.

Would be great to play as. It gives you the mech suit, looks original, and it hearkens back to the original WC3 hero.

And it looks utterly ridiculous. Original is not always a good thing.

Originally Posted by Cle

Its funny how you accept that tinker could be something entirely different than what tinker was in WC3, but yet demon hunter must be exact replicate of wc3 unit.

I don't think the Tinker is acceptable as a player unit. Its too whimsical, too played for laughs, the giant hands motif is ridiculous and the only thing worth saving from the hero class is the name. And I consider that suspect because of the link to the profession. It conjures up too much of an image of actual tinkering....that might be an interesting piece of gameplay, but I think its probably beyond what the game can reasonably do.

The tech based theme the Tinker represents? Yes. Very worthwhile to add. Gunman or Pistoleer for ranged combat; Exoskeleton clad warrior with pistol/vibrosword for melee/tanking and a drone/pet based medic.

As for the DH....I don't think an exact replica of the WC3 is important. The only things that would need to be saved are the theme, looks, lore and Meta - the things which make it cool and which from part of the current design space. Unfortunately....those are taken. But specific abilities? They aren't that important or critical. They show what a DH can do, and how...and the DH use of Warlock abilities tells us that the designers are linking the two classes design wise. But keeping the WC3 ability list is not major problem.

I don't think the Tinker is acceptable as a player unit. Its too whimsical, too played for laughs, the giant hands motif is ridiculous and the omnyl thing worths vaign from the hero class is the name. And I consider that suspect because of the link to the profession. It conjures up too much of an image of actual tinkering....that might be an interesting piece of gameplay, but I think its probably beyond what the game can reasonably do.

The tech based theme the Tinker represents? Yes. Very worthwhile to add. Gunman or Pistoleer for ranged combat; Exoskeleton clad warrior for melee/tanking and a drone/pet based medic.

As for the DH....I don't think an exact replica of the WC3 is important. The only things that would need to be saved are the theme, looks, lore and Meta - the things which make it cool and which from part of the current design space. Unfortunately....those are taken. But specific abilities? They aren't that important or critical. They show what a DH can do, and how...and the DH use of Warlock abilities tells us that the designers are linking the two classes design wise. But keeping the WC3 ability list is not major problem.

As for the DH....I don't think an exact replica of the WC3 is important. The only things that would need to be saved are the theme, looks, lore and Meta - the things which make it cool and which from part of the current design space. Unfortunately....those are taken. But specific abilities? They aren't that important or critical. They show what a DH can do, and how...and the DH use of Warlock abilities tells us that the designers are linking the two classes design wise. But keeping the WC3 ability list is not major problem.

EJL

How would you feel of a DH class based on Heroes of the Storm Illidan? One that retains the identity of a Demon Hunter without being a 1:1 translation of WC3/Warlocks, and feature a melee style that isn't completely overlapped by Rogues (since they use stealth and combo pts).

demonology would have to be reworked again to not focus about meta. warlocks would have to under go another rework to completely re-balance everything. it would be much easier to make a class from the ground up.

And you think all of that is easier than simply giving Dark Apotheosis the ability to equip warglaives, and a melee ability or two?

So let's dismantle and rebuild an existing class, just so we can bring in the Demon Hunter class... The very fact that we have to dismantle Warlocks to bring this class into the game, proves that there's way too much overlap between them.

Who says that this spell is Metamorphosis? You even say there is possibility of working around this one ability.

Yes. The workaround is that, if DHs did come in, they'd not get it.

Why? Shamans complained about other classes getting Bloodlust. Warriors complianed about other classes getting Mortal Strike. The abilities had different lore, different looks and were written to fit into the theme of the classes which got them...but the original owners still complained, and Blizzard still regretted the loss of uniqueness. But gameplay was more important.

Now...you are suggesting that Warlocks won't complain about another class turning itno a demon because...it'll have a different name for the ability and a different look. That hasn't been the case before, but to you Warlocks will be overjoyed to see the DH copy their iconic move.

It isn't going to happen. Unless DHs come in as a Warlock subspec, they can say bye bye to Meta or anything like it. There is no gameplay reason around to justify Blizzard doing that to Warlocks. It doesn't matter what its called, it doesn't matter what its in game effect would be. Warlocks would be rightly ticked off.

Although we saw the Blood Elves leaving the Alliance in TFT, there was no indication they had any more of a stronger bond with the Horde, or that they would join up with them. The same can be said of the Forsaken. The fact that Blood Elves joined the Horde was motivated by adding a 'pretty' race to balance out the high volume of players who want to play as a good looking female character.

Yes. Game wellbeing over lore. The Horde NEEDED a pretty race, a race that human players could identify with. It didn't have one, and Blizzard had one ready to go. Same here with DHs...Blizzard isn't going to add something that will hurt existing classes or the game.

Originally Posted by Darkvoltinx

wrong and until you can understand how much work it would take to remake warlocks to be able to have a demon hunter tank spec dont talk to me. when you finally understand how much work it would take then you can talk to me again.

It'll take less work than you think.

The design space for the DH spec is already worked out. Warlocks ahve a tanky history. And a lot of work was done wrt Warlock tanking for MoP. They weven went so far as to make Demonology a fully viable tank in Alpha....but drew back because it wouldn't be fair to players who were happy with the DPs role. Byt he time they came back to it, there was too little time to redevlop the idea aorund the new active mitigation system, and the Glyph was nerfed as a full tankign spec required balance a simple Glyph couldn't support.

So...yes. A lot of work. Not as much as you might think given the work that has already been done.

Demonology Warlocks are the Masters of The Demons , but the Demon Hunters are the ones who destroy the Demons because this is the reason why they live. To Destroy The Legion.Can a warlock do this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB82pF_64mw ?!

Who says that this spell is Metamorphosis? You even say there is possibility of working around this one ability. This is a clearly new spell I'm talking about that simply retains a 'look', but completely different mechanics and theme. Do you also believe that Demon Hunters would need to retain a Warcraft 3 spell with absolutely no change from the original source?

Because Blizzard can change their priorities on a heartbeat for any given reason. They can set out to accomplish any set path of design, but it can also bend and break at will if faced with something as trivial as 'popularity'. Again, I bring the example of Blood Elves in the Horde. Although we saw the Blood Elves leaving the Alliance in TFT, there was no indication they had any more of a stronger bond with the Horde, or that they would join up with them. The same can be said of the Forsaken. The fact that Blood Elves joined the Horde was motivated by adding a 'pretty' race to balance out the high volume of players who want to play as a good looking female character.

Yes, but it was also supported in lore because members of the Alliance imprisoned, and actively worked to kill the Blood Elves. Thus, their defection to the Horde wasn't all that surprising.

However, what you mentioned here was for balance purposes. Before the BE inclusion to the Horde, the Horde was outnumbered throughout the game. The BE inclusion helped balance out faction numbers, so there was a very good reason for Blizzard to do that.

Another big example is Paladins and Shamans opened up to Horde and Alliance. Do you think this was motivated by design? No, it was motivated by balance, since it was much too difficult to maintain the asymmetrical design.

Exactly. So in both of those cases, we have a very clear reason for Blizzard to perform a "retcon". However, both of those examples are minor compared to what you're proposing; The inclusion of a class at the detriment of three existing classes just because the class is "cool".

And you think all of that is easier than simply giving Dark Apotheosis the ability to equip warglaives, and a melee ability or two?

So let's dismantle and rebuild an existing class, just so we can bring in the Demon Hunter class... The very fact that we have to dismantle Warlocks to bring this class into the game, proves that there's way too much overlap between them.

clearly you dont understand how much work it there would be to redo warlocks enough to have a demon hunter tank spec to warlocks.

now your putting words into my mouth. i never said dismantle a class to bring another class in.

clearly you dont understand how much work it there would be to redo warlocks enough to have a demon hunter tank spec to warlocks.

Um, all it would require is for Dark Apotheosis to become a spec, and make them crit immune. Dark Apotheosis Warlocks are pretty much tanks in the game right now.

now your putting words into my mouth. i never said dismantle a class to bring another class in.

You said redesign the Warlock class (again). That means you're going to dismantle the current class, and bring in a new design for the class. Nothing would piss off current Warlock players more.

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Originally Posted by Talen

And it looks utterly ridiculous. Original is not always a good thing.
EJL

One of the reasons I never thought to consider the Brewmaster hero as a possible WoW class was because I thought that Blizzard would never bring in a class that tossed beer around, and made people drunk. I thought that surely Blizzard would use the Runemaster for their Monk class, since it was more serious in tone.

Boy was I mistaken.

You can't honestly believe that the Brewmaster theme is less ridiculous than this;

Yes, but it was also supported in lore because members of the Alliance imprisoned, and actively worked to kill the Blood Elves. Thus, their defection to the Horde wasn't all that surprising.

It's not surprising. They made the lore work. Just as they made the inclusion of Death Knights and Pandaren fit seamlessly as playable factions.

Yet my point is that the Horde, as evidenced by all patterns of design prior to TBC, would never have included such a faction into their ranks if you simply relied on extrapolated design. This is exactly what you are basing all properties of new classes on; extrapolating Warcraft 3 into WoW heroes. You are not wrong to say Death Knights and Monks are derived from Warcraft 3, but you would be wrong to say that no other class could possibly derive from Warcraft 3 because other classes have similar spells/themes. It's not evidence against any possible outcome.

Exactly. So in both of those cases, we have a very clear reason for Blizzard to perform a "retcon". However, both of those examples are minor compared to what you're proposing; The inclusion of a class at the detriment of three existing classes just because the class is "cool".

Then that is your opinion that it's just because it's cool. I can say easily that a Legion-based expansion, and the familiarity of the Demon Hunter class would be strong components towards a Demon Hunter class as well. It's a class everyone recognizes and understands the basics of, even if they don't know the details.

And like Yig says, the Demon Hunter class is plagued with conflicting and ominous backstory that needs to be ironed out. The best way to approach that is by having it fully featured, potentially as a playable class/spec. Gameplay all comes naturally in the end, given Blizzard is able to expand the Class Identity into new territory, just as they did with allowing Priests to use Shadow Magic or Paladins to use Shields.

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Originally Posted by Teriz

You can't honestly believe that the Brewmaster theme is less ridiculous than this;

The Pandaren is a part of Warcraft since Warcraft 3. That particular concept piece doesn't fit Warcraft at all.

How would you feel of a DH class based on Heroes of the Storm Illidan? One that retains the identity of a Demon Hunter without being a 1:1 translation of WC3/Warlocks, and feature a melee style that isn't completely overlapped by Rogues (since they use stealth and combo pts).

The gameplay aspect itself is - for the most part - irrelevant. It can be imparted within a spec or class as needed or desired. Blizzard can adpat the Glyph of DH, or give the DH a new system entirely. There can be new moves, old moves. Whats important is that the gameplay act to support what we know the DH can do - melee combat and tanking. WC3, WoW, HotS? All can act as inspirtaion and all can, if necessary, be ignored.

The one exception? Metamorphsis. Why? Because for good or ill, its become a DH signature move. Something expected. You aren't really a DH unless you have meta. But even that is expendable.

The issue is with the rest oft he class designs pace. The identity. The overlap in its design space that exists between DHs and Warlocks, Rogues and so on. Can you break that overlap without destroying what it actually means to be a Demon hunter? Does HotS provide enough new lore or story to do that?

No...because HotS doens't address the design space overlap. It potentially provides new gameplay, new tools. But Illidan is still the same Demon Hunter and his presence there really doesn't chaneg the DH identity at all. Gameplay? Potenially...yes. But gameplay has always been the least problematic aspect of the design space. The ability lists are ultimately unimportant for the design. And that is all HotS really changes.

Originally Posted by Teriz

You can't honestly believe that the Brewmaster theme is less ridiculous than this